Eternally Shadow-Banned

On Bodies Being Bodies and Confronting the Algorithm

Jada, Unraveling Series 2023.Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

By Taylor Neal

I have always been fascinated by bodies and the natural beauty of bodies being bodies interacting with the world.

I grew up as a dancer, which connected me intimately at an early age to the complexities and nuances of different bodies through all stages of life—the ways that youthful bodies move, how these movements change as we age, and the influence of one’s own lived experience on their relationship to their body.

As a student, I became fascinated by fashion and costume and how garments and manipulations of shape and silhouette can alter and interpret bodies—how one’s background, location, and lived experience can influence one’s relationship to their body.

This ongoing fascination led me to photography, to the capturing of bodies in stillness. I have worked in this medium now for over a decade.

Taylor Neal. Jolene (2), Unraveling Series, 2022. Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

On Bodies Being Bodies

Through photography, I strive to capture natural relationships between the human subject and the natural world and to emphasize that we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. I refer to my art as an exploration of free beauty, a concept derived from Kantian philosophy, specifically Kant’s Critique of Judgement. Kant defines free beauty as “the experience of beauty rests on what he calls a harmony, or a free play of the faculties of imagination and understanding, punctuated by pleasure. Notably, this free play is supposed to be without a concept.[1]

Kant’s notion of free beauty arrives when we notice a harmony between imagination and understanding, based in pleasure, without predisposition. In our world, we are so often influenced by what we are told is beautiful, what we are allowed to regard as beauty, that we’ve become disconnected from our natural noticing of beauty that resides in the human form. The body is beautiful in a way that we can instinctively perceive. My work seeks to remind us of the free beauty in all of our natural forms.

When we are only able to witness uncensored bodies in sexualized contexts, our detachment from free beauty is extended.

As a queer, femme photographer, I use photography to explore bodily beauty beyond the dominant narratives attached to bodies in media. My work aims to depict genders from a compassionate, intimate perspective, to capture the body in its most natural form in spaces that allow for consent and safety. As most of us working artists in 2024 must, I use social media—primarily, Instagram—to share my work and connect with like-minded communities. The problem, then, is striving to find a respectful balance between maintaining the integrity of my art and mission and satisfying the censorship algorithms that rule these platforms.

Taylor Neal. Strawberry Moon, 2021.

The Algorithm

There are many reasons why these platforms censor and silence bodies. Oversimplified arguments for online censorship are often predicated on maintaining a platform free of sexual content, purportedly to address concerns related to the age of consent. The problem with this practice is that to censor the nude body, especially the femme body, is to link the body inherently with sexuality.

By censoring only certain parts of the body, the genitals and female-coded nipples, the natural body is deemed an inherently sexual image. The body then, is deemed something to be hidden away and ashamed of, where only specific depictions of bodies are acceptable for the platform.

Female-coded nipples are permitted on the platform only within the context of breastfeeding; genitals only concerning birth or as depicted by sculpture or painting. Censors and algorithms decide whether or not, and in what ways, bodies are worthy of being seen. The nipples of femme people are only acceptable if in relation to motherhood, but not by their own autonomous choice.

When we are only able to witness uncensored bodies in sexualized contexts, our detachment from free beauty is extended. In a world that routinely links one’s worth as a human to their sexual desirability, to have our bodies policed in this manner is a constant reminder that our bodies are not our own. Furthermore, in the categorizing of certain bodies as exclusively sexual, and the deeming of the sexual as explicit and subject to censure, our sexuality is silenced. The free beauty inherent in our bodies is silenced.

The western world has suffered for generations from sexual repression. We finally have tools such as social media to generate information, conversation, and education about our bodies, our pleasure, and sexuality, and yet we must use silly type tricks such as “seggs” and “m@sturbation” for these conversations not to be erased on social media— these conversations that have the power to save lives. These censures and erasures also have an outsized impact on sex workers striving to navigate the drastically changing ways of reaching clients and going about their work. Anything outside the lens of acceptability constructed by the platform authorities and algorithms is automatically deemed dirty.

I do the work that I do, to directly confront this silencing.

Taylor Neal. Bri, Unraveling Series, 2023. Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

The Silencing

In addition to the many barriers my work faces due to my position as a queer femme photographer, this policing of bodies makes it even more challenging to share my art, which strives to approach the widely experienced trauma of body-based censorship in the western world. My refusal to delete my art from Instagram to satisfy the algorithms means that I am eternally shadow-banned on the platform, which makes expanding my audience next to impossible on the app. Their message: surrender to our guidelines or get lost.

My profile on Instagram aims to be a space where people can come to feel seen, validated, and reminded of their inherent beauty, regardless of what barriers and limitations their body has faced. When I share my other work as a sex educator and writer on the platform, offering access to sex education and conversation on topics of the body, queerness, and sexuality, I face additional censure and silencing.

Even within the policing of bodies in general, there are bodies that face greater barriers than others. I am a white, thin, able-bodied femme living in Canada. Even though I am constantly censored, I still hold privilege in spaces such as Instagram. It is important to note that when I post photos of my own body, these photos are less likely to be flagged or removed than when I post photos of fat bodies, disabled bodies, bodies of colour, queer bodies, and aging bodies. I have learned these facts through experiments with my own social media.

Whenever I mention sex work, I am silenced.

When the sex worker happens to use substances, it is silenced even faster.

Whenever I show body hair, I am silenced.

When that body hair is on a body of colour, it is silenced even faster.

Whenever I show fatness, I am silenced.

When that fatness is showing signs of aging, it is silenced even faster.

Whenever I show intimacy between lovers, I am silenced.

If that intimacy is queer, it is silenced even faster.

Bodies existing outside of what is deemed palatable receive fewer likes, and significantly less views, based on what the algorithm allows to appear on Explore pages within the Instagram app, and often appear on my “restricted content” list. Videos of myself dancing also appear on my “restricted content” list if I dare to touch my body erotically, as though my body is not mine to touch and share how I please. 

The “restricted content list” is a relatively new feature on Instagram, where you can see  a list of which of your posts have been flagged as problematic and why. This list of posts is then used as evidence for “why a profile can’t be recommended,” which means that no matter what hashtags you use or how good your content is, your posts will never come up on anyone’s feed unless they search you specifically. This is harmful for people using this platform for business and for artists striving to share their work and build an audience, because gaining followers and having your content seen is difficult if the algorithm is blocking it from going anywhere. The only way to fix this so that your profile can be seen is to either contest the flagging (which usually doesn’t change anything) or remove the posts that are named “problematic” and wait for the algorithm to re-evaluate your profile.

Taylor Neal. Mosco, Unraveling Series, 2022. Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

F*ck The Algorithm

And yet, we simply cannot stop sharing.

We need to see ourselves, our bodies, in the spaces we have access to, not gate-kept behind entrance fees, in art galleries, or on porn websites, run by the same powers controlling our algorithms. In creating a space online dedicated to the expression of free beauty, my intention is to remain available and accessible as a means of safety and support in our collective journey toward reclaiming our bodies, regardless of how the shadow-bans minimize my audience.

I continue to find new and creative ways to share my work within the criteria, and yet I feel a little pang of frustration each time I airbrush the nipples from my photos. Free beauty is meant to refer to the lack of concept, or imposed standard of meaning, and yet to cover nipples is to implicate inherent meaning upon them. But, this platform is what we’ve got for now by way of accessible art dissemination, and so I find ways to share more authentic versions of my work elsewhere, and use Instagram to re-direct folks there. Because we cannot stop doing this work, creating this art, pushing back against the hegemonic standard of acceptable beauty with the bold realness of how it actually looks to be human.

We cannot stop finding beauty in the crevices of the rocks, the way the juice of the pomegranate mirrors the body, and the folds of our skin. Our connection to nature is where free beauty is found, and this unfiltered, raw, organic beauty is the essence of what makes us human. We cannot stop sharing the authentic experience of our bodies, their nuances, and their unique interpretations of life, because we cannot stop expressing our humanity. We cannot stop creating spaces for safety, recognition, and representation. We find ways to work together within the algorithm and to beat it at its own game by using type tricks and blurring our images, or we grind against it together.

So, uplift your favourite artists and share their work. Notice the patterns you see in the algorithms and work to confront them. Call it out when you sense wrongness, in the words of Sara Ahmed.[2]

We must not stop sharing, even if we are eternally shadow banned, because even when it feels hopeless, someone will stumble upon your page and feel seen by your art.

This feature can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

[1] Kant, I. . The Critique Of Judgement. (1790).

[2] Ahmed, S. . Living A Feminist Life. (Duke University Press, 2017).

Reimagining the Gaps: Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts

Jackman Humanities Institute

September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024

Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, Lan “Florence” Yee, Kama La Mackerel, Jordan King, and Kasra Jalilipour

Curated by Dallas Fellini

Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, The Pink Pegboard from Tape Condition: degraded (2016), 2023. Mixed-media installation, dimensions variable. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

By Adi Berardini

I walk into what looks like a 1990s hotel lobby with a black, brown, and weathered gold interior filled with house plants. I walk determinedly to the elevators to head up to the tenth floor of the Jackman Humanities Institute – an interdisciplinary building part of the University of Toronto. In many ways, an exhibition within meeting rooms seems well-suited to queer the space of (potentially boring) meetings. The exhibition Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, curated by Dallas Fellini, features artists Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney, Lan “Florence” Yee, Kama La Mackerel, Jordan King, and Kasra Jalilipour. The show addresses how the colonial archive has omitted queer and trans works from its depths while also being a method of control and surveillance of LGBTQ2S+ artists.

Exiting the elevator, I see a stark white office space with a reception desk. Walking down the hall to the main exhibition space, the installation by Hazel Meyer and Cait McKinney immediately stands out. Among a pink wall with perforated holes, there are items such as pink triangle archival buttons saying, “No more shit” and a rendered drawing of the buttons, a bag of gloves, a paddle, drawings of VHS tapes and instructions for their care, and a megaphone with fabric strips forming the shape of a pop-pom. Tools hang below a sign that says “LESBIANS invented the internet” in green text. There’s a printout of the Body Politic issue featuring an essay by Chris Bearchell about lesbian porn.

Created as part of a residency at the ArQuives, Meyer and McKinney address pro-porn versus anti-porn feminism, a long-standing discussion within feminist circles. Some may question if lesbian porn should be kept in archives when lesbian identity has been so sexualized. However, capturing DIY lesbian porn and desire is an important aspect of an archive and snapshot in time. The installation takes a more sex-positive approach and parallels the care for VHS tapes with kinky sex practices. The installation sparks a discussion of the ethics of collecting queer porn and the forces against it, such as the police.

Jordan King, Untitled, 2020. Polaroids, 3.5” x 4.5” each. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Further, on the back wall, self-portrait polaroid snapshots–Untitled (2020) by Jordan King–capture burlesque-inspired glamour shots, with King donned in a skin-tight red dress, feathers, and red lipstick. Dallas explained how King is a big fan of the drag performer International Chrysis. King was relocating to New York and showed up to an apartment viewing she found on Craigslist. While looking around, she noticed polaroids of the performer in the apartment. As it turns out, the tenant (and King’s future roommate) was a friend of Chrysis. King recreates the glamorous images she found in the apartment, continuing International Chrysis’ legacy—which could be a coincidence or the pearl string of fate. The original images that served as inspiration are alongside the reiterations. The photos spotlight how, due to institutional failure, the LGBTQ2S+ community ultimately becomes the caretakers and archivists of our own community and how we inherit these images and honour their legacy.

Kama La Mackerel, Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness: Trans Subjectivity in the Postcard, 2019. Inkjet on silk paper, 24” x 16” each. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Kama La Mackerel’s self-portraiture series Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness: Trans Subjectivity in the Postcard (2019) reflects on the tourist postcards depicting a crafted paradise that erases the native populations, specifically in Mauritius. Trans femmes and women are erased in these colonial depictions of land without a trace of its native inhabitants. The cultural heritage and queerness itself are often shrouded by colonial and heteronormative values instead. La Mackerel poses in front of a vast and beautiful background of fields and mountains, centering and reasserting themselves into the picture. La Mackerel challenges these postcards as a capitalistic tactic to bring tourists and settlers to the land stewarded by the Indigenous population for centuries through the empowering stances before the landscape.

The video Gut Feelings: Fragments of Truth (2021), by artist Kasra Jalilipour, explores the life (and imagined life) of the Qajar era historical figure Zahra Khanum, also known as Tāj al-Saltaneh. The 3D modelling software version of Tāj al-Saltaneh spinning around a vibrant background reimagines the gaps of what the historical archive has erased or omitted. The voiceover is reminiscent of a letter to an old friend. Jalilipour looks at the way that Tāj al-Saltaneh is filtered through Eurocentric and misogynist standards. A meme circulated online (which conflated her and her sister, Esmat) comments with surprise at how she had rejected 13 men who then killed themselves, labelling her as unattractive. Jalilipour is also interested in how her androgyny implies her unattractiveness.

Kasra Jalilipour, Gut Feelings: Fragments of Truth and Gut Feelings: Fragments of Fiction, 2021. Video, 12:16 and 3:04. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Jalilipour poses the question to AI, what do Iranian women look like? They scroll through image-search feeds that depict white-washed versions of Iranian women in an image search. When they tried recreating al-Saltaneh through a game, they did not have much success, and the game software could not correctly identify her ethnic background or gender. Through the fictional media essay, Jalilipour speculates on Tāj al-Saltaneh’s queerness since she was linked to Queen Maria Anna of Spain. When they tried to google Tāj al-Saltaneh, images of Queen Maria Anna of Spain also came up. They infer a secret romance between the two as well as their frustration that it was easier to recreate Maria Anna in the game with its Eurocentric design features. Jalilipour also reflects on how natural showing affection to other women was historically with awe and admiration.

Suspended from the ceiling, Lan “Florence” Yee’s textile work PROOF (2022-2023) reflects on what classifies a queer image and the labour that lies behind it. In the background are discarded chairs overlaid with the hand-embroidered text PROOF, like a printed photograph proof. Yee asserts that human rights should be inherent and challenges how the archive erases queer and trans narratives through its structure, notably the queer Asian histories and other racialized queer people. Nothing should have to be proven to gain rights and respect from others. They use humour and irony by using the imagery of chairs— perhaps it’s the conversations that happen in these chairs through community organizing that matter most.

Lan “Florence” Yee, Leaving Space, 2019. Hand-embroidered nylon thread, tulle, and galvanized steel wire, 10″ x 7.5″ x 15″, set of three boxes. From Mnemonic silences, disappearing acts, September 13, 2023–June 21, 2024, Jackman Humanities Institute. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid, courtesy of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

Down the hallway in a meeting room is Yee’s Leaving Space (2019), consisting of sewn, transparent baskets reading “for the unrecordable,” “for the unrecorded,” and “the yet to be recorded.” The work references archival bank boxes, although its soft fabric reminded me of a laundry storage basket, adding a further touch of humour. The fabric sculpture acts as an altar for the voices silenced or looked over by colonial archives but ends on a hopeful note that their voices will still be remembered and recorded.

The exhibit wonderfully explores the personal record-keeping and storytelling that takes place when the colonial archive has suppressed and erased queer voices. Mnemonic Silences, Disappearing Acts looks at the way that archives have not only excluded queer stories but are used as means of surveillance when they do include them. The highlights of the exhibit are the creative approaches artists bring when it comes to using the queer imagination to reimagine the gaps and erasures in the archive.

This review can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

How to Stare at the Sun

Moira Hayes. Citrus 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

By Moira Hayes

Of all the things in life that are hard to look at, nothing has plagued me so acutely as the sight of a beautiful woman. When I see an attractive woman, I look away and I try not to look back. I’ve been asking my friends, my family, and random people in bars if they share this affliction. They don’t! So, why?

I’ve asked myself the following questions:

  • Am I just extremely shy?
  • Am I comparing myself?
  • Could it be Catholic guilt?
  • Do I feel embarrassed that I crave someone unattainable?

The answer is a resounding “Yes” to all of them. I am shy and I am comparing myself. My internalized homophobia, implanted at a young age by the Catholic education system, tricks my brain into believing that other queer people are unattainable entities, constantly out of reach. Light years away.

Step 1: Accept that you love the Sun.

For a long time, I felt like accepting that I was queer was admitting defeat. Yes, everyone who looked at me in high school as the token lesbian was right. Yes, any suspicions from my extended family were proven true. Yes, you got me, you are correct—I’m gay.

Winning is a learned skill that can only be achieved by a seasoned loser.

When I was in high school in the 2010s, queer communities emerged as an unavoidable presence in mainstream media. Huge shows like Glee, Pretty Little Liars, and Teen Wolf had queer characters. The widespread exposure to queerness was groundbreaking. Suddenly, it was very trendy to be gay.

In the showrunners’ attempt to keep up with this trend, queer characters were ushered into narratives to fill this new requirement. Unfortunately, it was also easy for writers to usher in the generational tragedy attached to the queer community, i.e. the AIDs crisis, or centuries of homophobia from both religion and state. Queer characters can’t just be characters, they always come with baggage. How else could the majority of (straight) viewers sympathize with them?

So, it kind of sucked. In her 2021 thesis work, Elizabeth Bradshaw explores this phenomenon in queer narratives:

“Punishing queer characters—through heartbreak, death, or overt punishments—is such a common device used in literature and film that it has earned its own nickname: Bury Your Gays. This trope dictates that when a same-gender love story is present, one of the characters must be destroyed in some way by the end of the story.”1

Step 2: Get burnt to a crisp for the first time.

The multiverse of acceptance and fan fiction can keep a sad, closeted teenager alive until real-world destruction inevitably grabs hold, but here’s the thing: I didn’t want to be destroyed. I wanted to win, but it didn’t come easy. Winning is a learned skill that can only be achieved by a seasoned loser.

I have lost many times. It turns out that accepting love also comes with accepting heartbreak. My personal queer narratives were less deadly than the fictional ones but were not by any means sunny.

My body of work Hey Sunshine! was conceived in the aftermath of a breakup. While it was initially helpful to attach a single person to the symbol of a Sun, it quickly gained greater meaning. I cast the Sun in my narratives opposite myself to embody everything in life that I cannot control, the actions and opinions of others, bad timing, unavoidable distance, and even the weather.

Moira Hayes. Spit! 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

I’ve accepted that all I can control are my own actions and reactions. I take responsibility and control of my own autonomy. I can choose to move forward or remain stagnant. Often, this invaluable introspection is achieved through hindsight.

In Spit! I invite destruction, disguised as love, into my life. Whilst damaging myself, I put my relationships with others at risk: my ability to communicate with others is obliterated, I drain all my energy until there’s nothing left, and all the light in my world is gone. By the end of the piece, my dependency on love relies on a single entity, and I’m burnt to a crisp.

Heartbreak sears like a sunburn. It stings until time has soothed it into a memory.

Step 3: Regroup, reflect, and slather yourself in sunscreen.

Self-reflection is one hell of a drug. Let’s talk about beautiful women again, starting with the female gaze.

I grew up experiencing a lot of anxiety around older women because I was always mistaken for a boy. My short hair and aversion to dresses led a lot of women to believe that I had walked into the wrong public washroom. I was ill-equipped as a child to navigate such a situation. (Recall that I am shy.)

I hated when people would question my gender, strangers comparing me to their preconceived images of a woman. (Recall that I am also comparing myself.) I grew contemptuous of the gendered answer because it ultimately aligned me with the perpetrator of my problem: other women.

Then comes the tidal wave of high school, plaid quilts, polo shirts, and a girl shrieking in the change room before gym class that none of us better be lesbians. Oh, good. That’s perfect. Something infinitely worse than being a girl who is routinely mistaken as a boy—being a girl who liked other girls.

Moira Hayes. Birth. 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

In Birth, a run-on sentence emphasizes the sudden and unexpected rush of falling in love. Detailing a strenuous morning, starting by going to work. The narrative winds into a full-body experience until I answer the call, ushering forward a new possibility of love. Behind the words, runs a telephone cord as a reference to communication while also signifying an umbilical cord.

Despite my gut instinct to look away, brought on by previous hurt and historical evidence that people can be cruel, I choose to pick up the phone. Love isn’t a game, but that’s never stopped me from trying to win.

Step 4: Get burnt again, probably.

Citrus bemoans the heartbreak at the end of a relationship. The narrative in this piece is punctuated with the image of a Sun, “the fruits of my labour, on fire in the heat of your…” The piece is accusatory and the background yellow layer of vinyl wrinkles outward, its words lifting at their edges and repeating themselves to not be forgotten.

I have lost many times.

Moira Hayes. Hotter than Hell. 2022. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Step 5: Acquire sunglasses.

I dated someone in university who kept a semi-nude photo of a famous lesbian as her phone lock screen. I admired the boldness, despite the extremity. Not only is it something I would never do, but it’s also something I never considered I could do.

When you type the word Cool into iMessage, the first suggested emoji that comes up is the smiley face wearing sunglasses. The nice thing about sunglasses is that nobody can see where you’re looking, you just look cool.

In Hotter than Hell, I adopt a skeptical view of the Sun’s dramatics. I breeze by the grandiose envisioning of Hell and brush off the Sun’s opinion. I’m over the dramatics of a relationship, the theatre of winning or losing emotionally. I push my sunglasses further up my nose.

Staring into the Sun for extended periods of time will blind you, no doubt. Just plain old looking into the Sun is so intimidating that we invented sunglasses to shield ourselves; it’s self-care. It could be designer or dollar store self-care, but either way you look cool.

How does one stare at the Sun? Exposure therapy with an equal measure of self-preservation.

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 pair of sunglasses for confidence 
  • 1 light year (distance and time) for perspective’s sake
  • 1 bottle of SPF 30 sunscreen for pragmatic reasoning
  • Acceptance of heartbreak, for when the sunsets
  • Acceptance of yourself, to see yourself through and through and through and through

Good luck!

PSA: Please don’t stare at the sun during a total eclipse without proper eye protection.

This feature can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

  1. Bradshaw, Elizabeth. The Male Gaze and the Female Gays: Reimagining Queer Narratives in 2021,Texas Scholar Works, 2021, 58. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/44fe4abb-97ed-44d4-a81d-dd8512109074/content ↩︎

The Queer Electronic Dream of Dinah! The Album & Film

Dinah Thorpe. Dinah! performance and film at Array Space. Photo courtesy of the artist.

By Kalina Nedelcheva

In the quaint Array Space at 155 Walnut Avenue, Toronto-based queer electronic musician Dinah Thorpe performed Dinah! alongside a film which interprets each one of the 17 songs on the album.

Throughout the performance, Thorpe established a synergy between the ebbs and flows of her delicate voice, which sometimes accompanied and at other times contrasted the unpredictable urgency of the instrumentals and the visual language of the film. The cinematography oscillated between the abstract and the everyday, juxtaposing texture and shadow play with experiences of living and navigating the urban environment. Some shots—such as the interpretive dance by collaborator Patricia Allison framed by trees, fallen leaves, and a busy street in the background—were endearing; others were eerie and confrontational. For example, Thorpe presents documentation of the fences and signs that the City of Toronto put up as part of its efforts to remove homeless individuals from park encampments. The sequence and the lyrics of this track remind us of the protests, policing, and the demand for safe spaces for vulnerable citizens that have been going on since January 2021. The beats and lyrics reflected these narratives, shifting between a calming lullaby and heavier, industrial prowess. The experience of Dinah! blends a sense of immediacy and a softness particular to queer identities. The rhythm kept listeners grounded throughout and the artist’s commitment to activist causes was clear and decisive—Thorpe concluded her performance in a tee proudly claiming: “PRIDE IS ABOLITIONIST.”

I had the opportunity to chat with the artist before the Dinah! release show where she elaborated on the creative process for this album and film.

Dinah! album portrait. Photo by Janet Kimber. 

K: Can you tell us about the journey of creating your upcoming album, “Dinah!”? How did the process differ from your previous albums (considering the pandemic context)?

D: It’s hard to talk about the whole process because it spanned for so many years. I always write alone and that didn’t change during the pandemic. But it was a different kind of isolation than experienced in previous artistic work. There was the context of panic and also not being able to go see art in person or be within artist communities outside of Zoom. I got a ukulele bass and a sequencer/sampler, which has helped me make beats in a new way. I felt like these two instruments kept me afloat in the pandemic. With no shows on the horizon, I could concentrate on just writing and not think as much about how to show things in a live context. A lot of the beats in the new album are from that beat machine and practicing for the launch of Dinah!, made me realize that I ended up playing bass on more than half the songs.  

K: How did this period of isolation impact your relationship with your voice and your approach to music-making?

D: It impacted everything—both the content and the structure of the songs. I feel like the things that I was writing about changed. And you know, there’s a particular structure that emerged where it’s sort of quiet and then it’s full-on panic, like a dense, fast panic. I’m not doing that structure anymore, so it feels like a particular pandemic song structure. I also started writing more instrumentals during that period of isolation. I think that was the result of not knowing what to say at all and finding it easier to translate things musically and not lyrically.

K: Your music has been described as “home to both the emotional and the physical.” How did you balance these elements in Dinah!, and what was your creative process like in achieving that balance?

D: As you know, dance parties were not a thing for such a long time and maybe still are not the easiest thing to go to COVID-wise and so, I started dancing more in my studio. I’m not a dancer, but I found that when I would do exercise videos, I’d also have a dance party. I also found myself more drawn to making dancier music. It was such a particular time for the body, remember? I don’t mean to say it’s over for folks but just acknowledging this scary, intense time for the body. At the same time, your body was trapped in one place. I guess I started using my body in different ways. I started doing a lot more yoga in the pandemic which changed my singing; it made me a better singer, which was not part of the plan. It just happened. Moving my body in these new ways helped me have a little bit more of an integrated practice for myself.

Now, I’m moving towards performance that involves lip-syncing, dance, and stripping, which is a whole other direction of embodiment. My practice had to become more integrated during the pandemic because my studio was the place where I could do things with my body when all the other things I usually did—like basketball, for example—were not available. And now, I am taking a cardio dance party class which is humiliating because I can’t keep up. But it’s teaching me to move my body in different ways and I am curious if that will make a difference in my work.


Dinah Thorpe. Dinah! performance and film at Array Space. Photo courtesy of the artist.

K: Your album features a “dynamic frisson,” with starts and stops that seem to mirror the unpredictability of the past couple of years. Can you speak to how you captured this sense of propulsion and tension throughout the album?

D: So, I love a wall of sound—like, I totally love a wall of sound and songs that do that well in all kinds of genres, not just in electronic music but also in band and classical music. I also really love singing quietly and with lots of layers of harmony in a way that you can hear the different parts. And I love bringing those things together, like having a wall of sound and having 10 vocal tracks with harmonies at the same time. The songs in Dinah! reflect the time of the pandemic because it was a very quiet time and a very introspective time, but it was also a time of utter panic and chaos internally. The wall of sound and the more folky, lyrical quietness ended up co-existing in some cases. I find it interesting to try to put them next to each other and see if I can make a coherent narrative that contains both. In some structures, I also like to do an arc where it’s a slow build, slow build, explode, and then the end.

Dinah! Film still. Courtesy of the artist.

K: Have you ever thought about your songs as lullabies?

D: I think that I aspire to write a lullaby but I’m not sure that I would be able to write a lullaby and then not throw something else in to wake the baby up at the end, you know?

K: Maybe it’s not a traditional lullaby but a queer lullaby. Like, wake up to the world and your identity!

D: Totally! Or like songs of queer seduction…the seduction of sleep, the seduction of sex.

K: How do you define queer seduction?

D: Well, I can’t speak for the audience, but people reflect to me that that’s been their experience of a show. I enjoy it when that happens because that’s my memory of going to inspiring concerts. You can’t figure out whether you want to be with them or sleep with them at the end, right? For me, all those early concert experiences were with queer musicians. I mean, I hope I engender that in people too but that’s also weird. Like, it’s this weird thing we project onto artists, right? It’s partly that music is very seductive when people are good at it.

But the other side effect of being a musician for me is that sex can’t involve music in any way because I am too involved in it, and I will check out of the thing that’s going on and pay more attention to the music. I feel kind of jealous of people who can set the perfect vibe by putting on music. Occupational hazard, I guess.

Dinah Thorpe. Dinah! performance and film at Array Space. Photo courtesy of the artist.

K: As an activist and athlete, how do you see your identity intersecting with your music, particularly in the realm of queer alt-electronic music? How does your personal journey inform the themes and messages in your songs?

D: All of the pieces that you’re talking about, like the piece of me that plays basketball and organizes basketball community and the piece of me that organizes for Palestinian liberation, which I’m involved in as much as I can be, make their way into my work. There is a track on the record about helping unhoused folks who are being violently evicted from a park by the police, for example. These pieces are just who I am. They inform my work in that way and vice versa; it just gives me the strength to do other work that I do that’s hard. I’m interested in doing activism in different ways. There’s the sort of obvious way of participating in marches and there are less obvious ways like delivering food to people who need it. I don’t mean to say that I’m doing everything on the activist spectrum, but I like to engage locally and be aware of horrendous global events to try and figure out how to make change happen.

Dinah! Film still. Courtesy of the artist.

I think everyone should be involved in this stuff. As artists, it is our job to look around and see what’s happening. In this sense, we are even more responsible because our job is to observe and reflect. Being an artist, a queer, an activist, and being an anti-capitalist and an anti-racist are all a part of me, and I don’t know that I can say which caused which. If you’re an artist, you’re likely living inside a system where you don’t get paid for your work so presumably that would make you identify with other people who don’t get paid for their work, right? And maybe you also recognize that other people do way harder work than you that they get paid badly for.

I want to be in community and a big way that I have found to be in community is through activism. And I feel like once you have a sense of how messed up things are, then there is no choice but to try to do something about it.

K: What do you hope listeners will take away from experiencing your music?
D: I always think of music as company and as therapy. It’s the thing that you put on while you’re making dinner and maybe you wiggle a bit, or it helps you through your day. I don’t know, it helps you with boring chores. And then the more active pieces are the emotions. I think we’ve probably all had the experience where we’re having a feeling, maybe we don’t even know what the feeling is, and then suddenly we’re listening to the perfect song for that feeling. Maybe the song causes us to dance down the street or to suddenly bawl our eyes out. I do this work in order to work through things and I hope my music works this way for other people, as well.  

K: Can you tell us a little bit about the film you made to go with your record?

D: It’s been a fun, interesting, and difficult project. I think working more in film partly came from the pandemic. There is a video for every song. I wasn’t sure how the film would be as a whole since there are 17 songs but having finished it, I think it does cohere; there are themes and a pace to it. So, you can experience the album by listening to it or you can experience the album by listening to it and watching the videos at the same time. It’s funny, at the very end of the project, I thought, why did I do this to myself? But I just wanted it to exist.

You can find more of Dinah’s music on her website and Bandcamp.

Seeds and Dyes: Queer Tamil Lineages of Art in Scarborough

Vijay Saravanamuthu, Two Seedlings. 2021. Film still. 

By Vasuki Shanmuganathan

During February 2022, I had the privilege of interviewing emerging artists Vijay Saravanamuthu and Dhiviya Prabaharan about their recent exhibit titled No Vacancy in Scarborough, produced in collaboration with Emily Peltier from Scarborough Arts – on view in Scarborough’s Tamil barbershop SR Beauty Salon, Nov – Feb 2022.[1]

The exhibition theme contests representations tied to Tamil arrivals (refugees, immigrants, undocumented people, and migrants) as temporary or ahistorical Canada. Re-interpreting these notions, the exhibit centers on narratives of Tamil people bringing with them deep histories and traditions of arts and crafts practices to Turtle Island. No Vacancy in Scarborough invited artists to consider which practices have survived, been inherited, or revived through their families despite forced migration.

The works of Scarborough textile artist Dhiviya Prabaharan titled Shanmugadevi and digital artist Vijay Saravanamuthu titled Two Seedlings highlight cultural production practices passed down through their grandmothers. They continuously explore complex and revelatory narratives about Tamil art forms that have taken root in local neighbourhoods as a result of migration and displacement. Scarborough’s lack of exhibition spaces does not quell the rich heritage of artists in the area nor, as Vijay describes, “how artful living is infused in how we move, our everyday living.”[2] Historically, the area has been sidelined by Toronto’s concentration of galleries, not to mention the class, race, and economic access barriers visible within the city’s art landscape. 

The exhibit took place in a hair salon which is part of a strip mall long occupied by Tamil shop owners but slowly dissipating with transit expansions, gentrification, the rising cost of living, and the impacts of the pandemic. I visited the shop owner, Yoga, who was willing to host the exhibit in the Scarborough neighbourhood of Brimley and Eglinton. He had arrived as a refugee less than a decade ago with his family. In response to the proposed partnership, he shared his belief that Tamil art deserves the kind of recognition that matches its rich history.[3]

No Vacancy in Scarborough urgently daylights the challenges of charting the survival of Tamil creative practices, familial warmth, and diasporic continuities through revisiting lineages of art and crafts.

To talk about a queer Tamil lineage of art, one must contend with the trauma of conflict and displacement, and the inheritance of practices long lost to time, genocide, and war. Both artists emphasize this common history as significant to understanding their work during our interview. No Vacancy in Scarborough urgently daylights the challenges of charting the survival of Tamil creative practices, familial warmth, and diasporic continuities through revisiting lineages of art and crafts. When the most recent genocide in 2009 took place, old and new generations alike felt deep grief. Displacement means losing connection to the island of Sri Lanka. Displacement has also meant losing knowledge of Tamil art histories and developments. Yet Tamil art in Canada is finding revival of older practices as witnessed by new artists’ lineages and collectives who incorporate these practices in their artworks.

Dhiviya Prabaharan. Shanmugadevi. 2021. Batik panels.

Dhiviya Prabaharan’s Shanmugadevi approaches intergenerational relations through an honoring of ancestral creative practices and reclamation of queer connectedness to culture and family. Their batik panels embody a craft-based process of calling in and grieving — repeating the labour-intensive rituals of the past by turning raw cotton fabric into images and patterns tied to natural elements. The exhibit showcased six 15 x 20 batik-resist panels. Prabaharan explains, “This series of work was co-created with the spirit of my ancestor, my late paternal grandmother Shanmugadevi, through the elements of fire and water and its interactions with the batik process. My grandmother was a batik designer, garment worker, and artist. However, because she had passed before I was born, and for many reasons including the war and migration, many of her designs were lost. I grieved this loss deeply, and in feeling and moving it, an opportunity to learn her art was born. This experience has reminded me that I am truly held by my ancestors, the power of trusting in divine timing, and believing that the right people show up at the right time.”[4] 

Dhiviya Prabaharan. Shanmugadevi. 2021. Batik panels.

In contrast, Vijay Saravanamuthu’s short film Two Seedlings seeks to document family histories and art practices between himself and his paati (grandmother) Ranganayaki Chinna Thirucottyappa with visual storytelling using pen and ink drawings and black and white photographs collected on a recent trip back home to Sri Lanka. His paati taught herself how to draw despite the lack of art classes accessible to her on the island by taking remote learning classes using a mail-in critique system in India. Vijay’s work is marked by a sense of visual mourning which forecloses on the totality of loss. Two Seedlings features voiceover and digital weaving as a means to reclaim, “treasured remnants of a life once lived with peace and dignity in pre-1983 Ceylon.”[5] His relationship to the arts has been influenced by the familial network in initially recording and digitizing existing practices and then adding his digital visual journey which makes use of panning wide sun-filled landscape shots, animated photographs, and voice narration. A second artwork is already in the works as he seeks to turn his intergenerational and collaborative exchange into a durational commentary on the nature of writing one’s history. 

Vijay Saravanamuthu, Two Seedlings. 2021. Film still. 

He says, “Displaced by the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka, Two Seedlings explores my relationship with my paati and my homeland, knowing both ancestral mothers only through photographs, phone calls, and short visits. Growing up in a family of storytellers, I often listened to old tales and imagined what my grandmother might have looked like as a child, what her childhood on the island might have been like, and how war and displacement have impacted her. Lacking access to paati in ways that many of my peers accessed their grandparents – exchanging gifts at holiday dinners, as cherished keepers of childhood secrets, or as warm hands tucking you into bed – my relationship with paati lived mostly in my imagination.”[6]

Vijay Saravanamuthu, Two Seedlings. 2021. Film still. 

The intent behind the No Vacancy in Scarborough series was to bring together arts organizations, small businesses, and creatives in suburban neighbourhoods who had been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Vijay and Dhiviya are part of a growing group of Tamil artists who seek to contribute to this arts landscape by honoring lived experiences and inherited histories from back home. Given the success of this exhibit, another call for Tamil artists has already been launched for the Golden Mile district of Scarborough.[7] What can be learned from centering queer Tamil artists and their contributions? A process of looking at older practices critically as they too come from histories tied to caste, Indigeneity, gender, and location but without losing the tender ties that carried them through the generations. This approach invites artists to draw on new and existing intimacies through art entwined to local neighbourhoods. 

A few months after the closing of this exhibit, Queer Tamil Collective held the first ever Scarborough Pride Event for Tamils which was a historical moment for the community.[8] There has also been a proliferation of Tamil artists and collectives exhibiting work in the past two years such as most recently Jeyolyn Christi’s thoduvanam (Contact Photography Festival, May 2022),[9] Whyishnave Suthagar’s Life Cycles (CDCC Gallery, May 2022),[10] Josh Vettivelu’s prayers for a word (Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, February – March 2022),[11] for all, I care (Lakeshore Arts, October – December 2021),[12] and Tamil aavana kaappaka tittam (The Public Gallery, March – June 2021).[13] Perhaps it is farsighted to conclude these recent exhibits as an indication of a growing Tamil art movement, but consideration of this possibility is long overdue in Canadian art criticism.

You can also find this review in the second print issue of Femme Art Review on the theme of Queer and Feminist Collaboration.

[1] “No Vacancy in Scarborough: Exhibition Description,” Scarborough Arts, November 2021, accessed 1 July 2022, https://www.scarborougharts.com/sr-beauty

[2] Vijay Saravanamuthu, interview by Vasuki Shanmuganathan, online, 17 February 2022.

[3] Yoga Palaniyandy, interview by Vasuki Shanmuganathan, Scarborough, 23 November 2022.

[4] Dhiviya Prabaharan, interview by Vasuki Shanmuganathan, online, 14 February 2022.

[5] Vijay Saravanamuthu, “Two Seedlings,” 2021, accessed 1 July 2022, https://vimeo.com/545097540.

[6] Vijay Saravanamuthu, interview by Vasuki Shanmuganathan, online, 17 February 2022.

[7] “All that is Golden: Call for Artists,” Scarborough Arts, 25 July 2022, accessed 26 July 2022, https://www.scarborougharts.com/news/call-for-submissions-all-that-is-golden.

[8] Adler, Mike, “Scarborough Pride Toronto event first one ever in Canada for Tamils,” The Toronto Star, 17 June 2022, https://www.thestar.com/local-toronto-scarborough/entertainment/2022/06/17/scarborough-pride-toronto-event-first-one-ever-in-canada-for-tamils.html?utm_source=share-bar&utm_medium=user&utm_campaign=user-share.

[9] “Jeyolyn Christi: thoduvanam,” Contact Photography Festival, accessed 20 July 2022, scotiabankcontactphoto.com/2022/open-call/jeyolyn-christi-thoduvanam.

[10] “Life Cycles: Live Performance by Whyishnave Suthagar,” Critical Distance, accessed 20 July 2022, https://criticaldistance.ca/event/life-cycles-live-performance-by-whyishnave-suthagar.

[11] “prayers for a word (or a lack that builds the world),” Visual Arts Centre of Clarington, accessed 20 July 2022, https://www.vac.ca/josh-vettivelu.

[12] “for all, I care,” Aarati Akkapeddi, Luxvna Uthayakumar, Krish Dineshkumar, Vasuki Shanmuganathan. Accessed 20 June 2022, https://forallicare.ca.; queer Telegu-American artist Aarati Akkapeddi was part of this exhibit comprised of Tamil artists. The group of artists had found affinities in how two related racialized communities on Turtle Island shared similar care practices amidst the pandemic.

[13] Tamil Archive Project, “tamil aavana kaappaka tittam,” The Public Gallery, March 2021, https://thepublicstudio.ca/gallery/tamil-aavana-kaappaka-tittam-தமிழ்-ஆர்கைவ்-ப்ரொஜெக்ட்.

Beyond Binaries: In Conversation with Mahsa Merci


Mahsa Merci, Silent Stars, Mayten’s Projects. 2021. Image courtesy of Amir Sohrabpour / Mayten’s.

Interview by Adi Berardini

Mahsa Merci is interested in challenging society’s traditional concepts of beauty. Through her paintings, sculptures, and mixed media work she expands notions of the gender binary by depicting queer, trans and gender non-conforming individuals using viscous oil paint and building up layered textures. Born in Tehran, Iran, Merci holds a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Tehran University of Art and a Master of Painting from Azad University. Currently based in Toronto, ON, she has recently completed her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

In her latest exhibition Silent Stars at Mayten’s Projects, Merci displays two years of work examining the restrictiveness of social norms that affect the LGBTQIA+ community. Merci explains how “painting is one of the best ways to challenge strict binaries.” Through bending the binaries between man and woman, and beauty and the grotesque, she invites the viewer in closer to her work to experience the textures and relate to her subjects.

Along with her queer portraiture, in Silent Stars Merci explores the terrain of sculpture, often referencing Islamic architecture and broader queer culture. For example, her sculpture Find Yourself Through Myself consists of a figure with light teal hair peering into a mirror of another among a shrine of sequins and pastel pink candles, evoking both oral sex and self-reflection. Also referencing Islamic architecture and miniature painting, Merci includes portraits as an homage to the Iranian LGBTQ+ community. Merci’s depiction of identity is not edited or airbrushed, but displays imperfections and flaws, challenging society’s restricting binaries and expectations.

You depict the queer community, particularly drag queens, gender non-conforming, and transgender people in your work. How did you first decide on depicting the queer community as your subject matter?

I always worked on gender identity, beauty, and sexuality as a subject in my country [for] more than 10 years. In 2017, I was watching a documentary about a transgender [individual] in Iran who had to leave for Turkey since they could not live in our country. That documentary was like a hammer on my mind. I could see beauty, grotesque, sadness, all of these things. I started to work on this subject in 2018 and one year later, I understood my sexuality when I was 28 years old. After that, I understood why I decided to work on this subject in my art career. My subconscious knew about it, but my conscious mind didn’t know about it at all. We don’t have any education or educational materials, living in a religious country. When the educational materials don’t exist, how can you understand your sexuality soon and in a good way? In 2018, I understood my sexuality, but it was so hard for me until now.

I can relate in a way. I felt like I was late coming into my sexuality as well. It took me until my early 20s to clue in that this is who I am, and this is who I’ve always been. But because of religion or compulsory heterosexuality, you lose that.

Exactly. It’s hard to know that you are part of this community when you don’t see anyone, or you don’t hear anything, it takes so much time to find it. It is not easy.

Mahsa Merci, Stay, Oil on Canvas. 30 x 40 cm. 2020.

Can you talk further about how you use painting to challenge binaries such as masculinity/femininity, beauty/ugliness, etc.? In what ways are interested in redefining societal beauty standards through painting?

I can say I am multidisciplinary [since] I’m working with so many materials—I’m working with painting, sculpture, animation, collage, so many things. But with painting I [can] find something so special. I never had an academic background with painting, I never had an apple on a table that I had to paint. When I’m painting, it’s like I print the portrait—I start to build up the materials and textures. I find painting as a material that I can show myself [through]. I’ve always really liked to share the spectrum of everything: softness and harshness, beauty and grotesque, femininity and masculinity and I find that painting can help me to do it. Every stroke with my brush that I do I feel myself in it.

I want to make an atmosphere that the audience wants to come closer to the portrait. Heterosexual [people] may not want to come closer to our community. I don’t want to have two categories, heterosexual and homosexual, I want to see more friendship together.

Your work uses a great amount of texture through the building up of paint. Can you explain more about your use of texture and its significance?

I work with oil colours which help me get the textures that I use. I like working with oil on small portraits that invite the audience in closer to see the portraits. When paintings are larger, physically the viewers need to go far to view it. I want to make an atmosphere that the audience wants to come closer to the portrait. Heterosexual [people] may not want to come closer to our community. I don’t want to have two categories, heterosexual and homosexual, I want to see more friendship together. I want them to come and see the portrait and see the details, the textures, the beauty, and the grotesque of the characters. Some parts come out of the canvas, like nose, lips, hairs, and jewellery—they are 3D works and not flat works. It’s kind of a metaphor for me to show that these are real people. I want to show the feeling that they are coming out of the canvas.

Mahsa Merci, Silent Stars, Mayten’s Projects. 2021. Image courtesy of Amir Sohrabpour / Mayten’s..

Can you explain your inspiration for your latest show, Silent Stars at Maytens?

The main inspiration is myself and the challenges and concerns that I am facing as a queer person. I always look at the other LGBTQIA+ people all over the world. I feel all of us have the same problems living in a patriarchal society, but the level is just a bit higher or lower. Sometimes when I see my friends and some portraits on social media or the website, they are an inspiration to me—their clothes and the queer culture. Then, I reach out to them and paint them. I am inspired by two books, Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards written by Afsaneh Najmabadi, an Iranian writer.

Mahsa Merci, Silent Stars, Mayten’s Projects. 2021. Image courtesy of Amir Sohrabpour / Mayten’s.

Your work featured in Silent Stars also plays upon sculptural and Islamic architectural elements. Can you speak further about these elements in your work?

The inspiration is from the book I mentioned, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards written by Afsaneh Najmabadi. She is an Iranian professor from Harvard working on gender, sexual identity, and beauty in ancient Iran. Through reading this book, I found that there was no heterosexuality or homosexuality in ancient Iran. It was surprising to me that two men or two women could have love or a relationship together without judging or explaining it to anyone. You can see in the paintings that the male and female clothing was the same. But when the Europeans came, they changed the culture little by little. They enforced the idea that men and women should be together. Now, if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community in Iran, you [may wish to] escape from the country or not say it too loudly since your life can be threatened by your family or your government. Although it is not us, it was brought to us.

The portraits inside the mirror frame are all Iranian LGBTQ+ [people]: one of them is queer, one is bisexual, and in the middle two portraits; one of them is lesbian, and one is non-binary. I wanted to [display] Iranian LGBTQ+ people as monumental. I get the shape of the mirrors from a very old and traditional Iranian art called miniature. Miniatures are very old paintings that Iranians and Persians painted of a building, spaces, or narratives with very, very small brushes. It is very special.

Do you have any upcoming projects that you would like to speak further about or things you’re working on?

I just moved from Winnipeg to Toronto. I still don’t have a studio, so I don’t have any big project or exhibition planned. Although, a project I’d really like to start is to make more sculptures. I found that sculpture can show very different things than painting can, so I’d like to continue that. I also want to take more photography from the background of drag shows. I have so many ideas from quarantine that I’d like to do.

You can view more of Mahsa Merci’s work on her website and social media. The Silent Stars exhibition is on display at Mayten’s Projects until January 15, 2022.

Art and Social Change: In Discussion with Munea Wadud

Munea Wadud. Support Queer and Trans Artists sticker.Image Courtesy of the artist.

Interview by Adi Berardini

I first came across Ottawa-based artist Munea Wadud’s colourful pastel patches on the LGBTQ2+ market site Flamingo Market, and the way xe blends activism and art and design immediately caught my eye. Their art prints, pins, patches, and stickers reading “Support Queer and Trans Artists” and “Destroy White Supremacy” use bright colour schemes to dynamically convey messages of advocacy.

As they describe, Munea Wadud is a “self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist with years of experience in acrylic painting, watercolors, and many other traditional forms of visual arts.” Recently, they have also been exploring digital drawing as a form of expression. Passionate about social change, Wadud creates art that is first and foremost inclusive and feminist, and their “identity and being a queer, non-binary person of colour” informs their work. Wadud’s art also has a strong focus on body positivity, creating representations showing that queer and trans bodies of all sizes are beautiful. Munea describes more about their art practice in the following interview.

Your art is influenced and inspired by culture, for example, the animation you created of a woman going out after Iftar. Your lo-fi city animations also convey the loneliness of the city, which is only highlighted by the pandemic and lockdowns. Can you speak more about how your art and cultural identity intersect in your practice? 

I feel like because I grew up in Canada, I felt really ashamed of my culture and my traditions. I know a lot of other South Asian kids in North America who felt similarly, and there was a lot of internalized racism there. You get made fun of a lot for how your food smells and how you dress. Art has helped me heal from that—it’s helped me fall back in love with that part of myself that I was denied for a long time. I do this by trying to include Bengali text in my works, drawing more traditional clothing, parts of my culture I think are fun and joyous, like going out after iftar, wearing really vibrant and colourful sarees. I’d like to continue rediscovering my culture through my art.

Munea Wadud. Plus Size Nude Series Art Print. Image Courtesy of the artist.

You celebrate body positivity in your art by depicting larger bodies, stretchmarks, and folks with larger noses. I was wondering if you could explain the importance of body positivity in your art and illustrations?

I am passionate about body positivity – it has helped me gain a lot of confidence and see myself in a much healthier way. It made me realize just how many of us struggle with body image issues, so I wanted to create more work that reflects people’s beauty. Things like stretch marks, cellulite, body hair, just larger bodies in general, are not depicted in a lot of art [and] it creates these unhealthy expectations of your body. You feel awful about the way you look and it’s really disheartening. I just want to make art that people can see themselves in. I want them to feel just as beautiful and important as anyone else because they are. It’s really important to me that representation is reflected in my work.

Munea Wadud. Support Black and Brown Artists sticker.Image Courtesy of the artist.

Your art explicitly advocates for support of Queer and Trans folks, particularly Black and Brown Queer and Trans artists, and does so by juxtaposing bright, colourful graphics and imagery (such as your arcade game print stating “Trans Rights are Human Rights”). Can you speak more about this juxtaposition and how you use it to convey important messages and advocacy? How do find creating multiples (like stickers and patches etc.) help communicate messages of support?

I just think that every space should be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) but often, I think a lot of work depicts sadness and struggle and though that is a reality for lots of minorities, our pain is not our only story. There’s a lot of media representing our obstacles and ways that we’ve overcome them. I just think I also want to see us being joyful and having good lives. I like adding bright colours and fun imagery with the same messages that represent inclusivity for QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) because we deserve to have those things too. So that’s why I create the juxtaposition.

Often, I think a lot of work depicts sadness and struggle and though that is a reality for lots of minorities, our pain is not our only story.

As for things like patches and stickers, I guess I’ve just always wanted some similar colourful and pastel designs but that reflect the views of minorities like me—I want people to feel included in my work and like their voices matter. So, I wanted to design my products in a way that fits this design aesthetic that I love, but also incorporates really important issues that matter a lot like advocacy for LGBTQ+ folks, inclusivity of BIPOC folks, and much more!

I think it’s important because these are all items I, as an independent artist, have designed and have decided to share with folks, which is very different than big corporations who create similar messaging only to support themselves rather than the people being directly affected by these messages. I wanted to highlight that difference, too, that although you can find intersectional and inclusive messaging in a lot of different stores now, it’s still important to look at who is making that product and for what reasons. 

Who are some artists (or other influences) that inspire your artistic practice?

I follow so many amazing artists that really inspire me every single day – ha.ha.ha.sina is a talented Black artist on Instagram and I love her painting style. I also follow Manahil Bandukwala who creates everything from watercolour pieces, to jewelry, to written works! There’s also Harar Hall (gold.tinted.glasses on Instagram) who’s work is super lovely as well – I love their poetry and how well it blends with their art style! And Lucky Little Queer who is a supportive fellow artist and creates amazing products too!

Munea Wadud. Trans Rights are Human Rights sticker.Image Courtesy of the artist.

Do you have any advice for other queer and BIPOC creators about starting an art business?

I know a lot of you are hesitant and nervous about starting a business, I was too. I used to feel like my work wasn’t good enough like I needed to practice more and wait longer to post something worthwhile. Honestly, looking back, I just wish I had started my online business sooner. And that’s the advice I have for you – your work is beautiful, you are talented, and I think you should still share it! I would love to see more BIPOC creators thrive and unapologetically show off their amazing art. 

Do you have any other upcoming projects you’d like to mention?

Right now, I am working on a really big print restock of many of my series like my body positivity prints as well as a few others – so please keep an eye out on my Etsy store for that drop! I’ll be posting my latest updates on my Instagram so make sure to follow me on there.

Check out more of Munea Wadud’s art on their Etsy Store, Facebook and Instagram.